The number of robocalls Americans receive has been soaring in recent months, many of them related to the impending demise of the “individual mandate” portion of the Affordable Care Act. Scammers have apparently seized on the confusion over exactly when the law’s requirement to purchase health care goes away, pouncing on unwitting consumers with a variety of tricks designed to separate them from their money.

While Congress voted to end the individual mandate last year, repeal won’t take place until this coming January. (In reality, if you don’t have health insurance this year, you’ll have to pay the penalty as in recent years when you pay your income taxes, but you’re not going to have to pay someone who calls you.)

In the ensuing months, many people have mistakenly believed the reversal was immediate, opening the door for crooks to take advantage of the confusion. And they’ve done so in record numbers, scaring consumers into thinking they must pay up on the phone, signing them up for bogus health insurance “policies” or just trying to steal identities by pretending to be working for the federal government or law enforcement.

Youmail, one of several companies offering robocall blocking services for cell phones, recently reported that its software detected 409 million health-related scam robocalls in August, a 10-fold increase from previous surveys. The surge is part of a record 4.2 billion robocalls made during the month.

Bill Moak(Photo11: Sarah Warnock/Clarion Ledger)

Of course, robocalls aren’t all bad. They can help remind you of an upcoming dental appointment, for example, warn you of an impending tornado, or let you know your child’s school has cancelled classes due to weather. But the robocalling world is being invaded by thieves and con artists, making it difficult to tell the good guys from the bad.

"There has been an explosion of health- and health insurance-related scams that use a variety of pretenses to collect personal information or payments for insurance that's never delivered," YouMail CEO Alex Quilici told CBS News last week. "Crooks see what's in the news, and they try to leverage it. They're consummate marketers — they're just in the wrong business."

And new technology is enabling scammers to get through quicker and defeat call-blocking software. In this virtual arms race, weary consumers are employing service such as Quilici’s, while robocallers have figured out how to fool your phone into thinking the call comes from a local number (In May, I wrote about this phenomenon, called “neighbor spoofing”). All this activity is making many people just stop answering the phone unless it comes from a number they know, but it could just be a matter of time before they hijack a real number belonging to your mom or a friend.

According to Consumer Reports, there are several ways to decrease the number of robocalls on your mobile phone:

Sign up for the do-not-call registry. While it won’t stop all calls from scammers (being crooks, following the law is not important to them anyway), or charities, political organizations and companies you’ve already done business with, it will slow down the calls you get from known companies who are just trying to sell you something. To legally call you, companies must download the do-not-call list on a regular basis and exclude numbers that are on the list. To add your number (cell and landline), visit https://www.donotcall.gov/. You can also get on Mississippi’s list, at https://www.psc.state.ms.us/nocall/subscriber.aspx, or call 866-622-5567.

Sign up for your carrier’s no-call service. Most carriers have already installed services to limit robocalling, and some will provide a premium service for a fee. Check with your carrier to find out what they offer.

Install call-blocking apps. Services such as YouMail and Nomorobo claim to be effective in blocking robocalls before they ever reach you, flagging them as possible scams or automatically sending them to voicemail.

Reject anonymous calls. While many consumer advocates suggest you reject any caller that doesn’t provide caller ID information, many robocallers are just using a telephone number to get around this service. Still, most carriers provide this service, so it’s worth trying.